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Participation and Governance

What does this research group do?

The Participation & Governance (PB) research group carries out research at national and international level on public opinion and the participation of citizens in (and the organisation of) collective decision-making processes. The research group collects, analyses and uses data from surveys, interviews and focus groups, as well as institutional data.

Civil society

The Participation and Governance research group investigates both the participation of individual citizens in formal and informal social networks (from the perspective of the citizen) and developments in these networks themselves (from an organisational perspective). The research forms part of a long-term 'civil society and voluntary work' project, and is also carried out in the context of various European collaborative projects. The research group also monitors trends in large non-governmental organisations. Over the next few years, the research group intends to focus more on informal groups.

Public opinion

Key aspects in the public opinion surveys are citizens' satisfaction with and expectations of society and politics. Among the topics covered in these surveys are political confidence and cynicism, the support for Europeanisation, subjective happiness and citizenship. The recently launched Citizens' Outlooks Barometer survey (COB) brings together the findings of quarterly surveys based on questionnaires and focus groups.

Religion

Changes in the area of religion have been a key topic in publications by the Participation and Governance research group for some time. The focus is not only on shifts in the traditional Christian faith and church membership, but also on the emergence of alternative religious and/or ideological attitudes and behaviour (migrants' churches, evangelical communities, new rituals and post-modern spirituality).